Uses of Metals and Metallic Minerals

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Uses of Metals and Metallic Minerals
Publisher: New Age | Pages: 332 | 2007 | ISBN 8122420401 | PDF | 1.5 MB

However, in today’s fast developing situation, there is always a multiple choice available for technologies and grades of input materials. So, technology and input materials can be chosen to suit any grade of a metallic mineral that is available in nature. The only constraints are the market price and the cost of recovering the metal values. The cost has always to be less than the market price, the vagaries of which limit the range of flexibility regarding the specifications of grade. But, even if these specifications are not flexible enough at some point of time, the principles underlying the specifications remain valid all the time. And those principles, rather than the specifications, have been emphasized in this book.

The story does not, however, end with processing a mineral, recovering its metal values and using those metals for producing various consumer products. Nature has not given us minerals containing all metals, and nothing else. In exceptional cases, some pure gold nuggets were found, but they have all been taken away by our forefathers. As it stands today, though there are some metallic minerals like hematite with more than 65% of metal value, there are others that contain less than one percent. What happen to the huge quantities of material that are left out after the metal values are recovered? Such material may, in some cases, be even up to 99% or more of what is mined. Those are generally referred to as waste materials. Then there are wastages at the stage of manufacturing the consumer products out of the metals and the consumers themselves waste a lot of those products during and after their use. In fact, wastes generate at every stage of economic activity, but it has been the experience that yesterday’s waste is today’s asset and today’s waste will be tomorrow’s asset. This happens because the developments in technology are not only about recovering the metals, they are also about utilization of the so called wastes. After all, technology is for minimizing the costs at every level starting from mining of the mineral down to the final consumption, so that at every stage the cost is less than the market price.

The second consideration in favour of maximization of the utilization of the wastes is related to the environmental problems. Some of the wastes remain on the ground, some go to the rivers and the ground water, some go into the air. The pace at which mining and processing of metals are going on at present, is far faster than it was a few decades ago. Wastes are also being generated at a very fast pace. If nothing is utilized properly, then the amount of damage these wastes will cause to the land, water and air in a few decades hence, is unimaginable.

The third consideration is about concerns for conservation of mineral resources. Conservation as such is not a new concept. Emperor Ashoka thought about it about 2300 years ago. But he thought about conserving the forests, birds and animals. In the 3 century BC, the edicts that he got inscribed on the rocks and iron pillars can be translated thus: “ Twenty six years after my coronation, I declare that parrots, mynas, the aruna, ruddy geese, the nandimukha, cranes, bats, queen ants, terrapins, boneless fish, rhinoceros and all quadrupeds which are not edible are not to be killed; forests must not be burned”. Conservation of mineral resources have become a concern only after the World War-II in 1945, when it was realized by the US Government, followed gradually by other governments, with alarm that higher grade parts of many minerals had all been mined out to meet the needs of the war and the economy, and there is urgent need to conserve what still remained. Conservation does not mean keeping the mineral deposits idle without mining. It means judicious mining, it means avoidance of wasteful practices of use, it means total utilization of the material mined without wastage. In other words, conservation means using not only the useful metal values of a mineral, but also the wastes generated during mining of the mineral to the maximum possible extent. Conservation and ignoring the waste materials generated during mining, processing or using of minerals and metals do not go together.

C++ Design Patterns and Derivatives Pricing

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C++ Design Patterns and Derivatives Pricing
Cambridge University Press | 2008-06-09 | ISBN: 0521721628 | 308 pages | PDF | 1,1 MB

This book is aimed at a reader who has studied an introductory book on mathematical finance and an introductory book on C++ but does not know how to put the two together. My objective is to teach the reader not just how to implement models in C++ but more importantly how to think in an object-oriented way. There are already many books on object-oriented programming; however, the examples tend not to feel real to the financial mathematician so in this book we work exclusively with examples from derivatives pricing.

We do not attempt to cover all sorts of financial models but instead examine a few in depth with the objective at all times of using them to illustrate certain OO ideas. We proceed largely by example, rewriting, our designs as new concepts are introduced, instead of working out a great design at the start. Whilst this approach is not optimal from a design standpoint, it is more pedagogically accessible. An aspect of this is that our examples are designed to emphasize design principles rather than to illustrate other features of coding, such as numerical efficiency or exception safety.

We commence by introducing a simple Monte Carlo model which does not use OO techniques but rather is the simplest procedural model for pricing a call option one could write. We examine its shortcomings and discuss how classes naturally arise from the concepts involved in its construction.

In Chapter 2, we move on to the concept of encapsulation – the idea that a class allows to express a real-world analogue and its behaviours precisely. In order to illustrate encapsulation, we look at how a class can be defined for the pay-off of a vanilla option. We also see that the class we have defined has certain defects, and this naturally leads on to the open–closed principle.

Rural Project Management

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Rural Project Management
Publisher: New Age | Pages: 244 | 2007 | ISBN 8122421491 | PDF | 1.2 MB

Management has been called “the art of getting things done through people”. This definition, by Mary Parker Follet, calls attention to the fact that managers achieve organizational goals by arranging for others to perform whatever tasks may be necessary – not by performing the tasks themselves.

Management has been viewed as a process of planing, organizing and controlling the organizational members and of using all other organizational resources to achieve organizational goals. Process is a systematic way of doing things. We define management, as a process because all employees, regardless of their attitude or skills engage in certain interrelated activities in order to achieve desired goals.

The classical, behavioural and quantitative schools of management focused on aspects of the organization the functionaries could influence directly. External environment continuously undergoes rapid changes having far-reaching effects on organizations and their management strategies. At the same time, the standards by which managers are judged have changed. Now, organization must consider the effects of their actions on the quality of life, holding themselves responsible to their stakeholder’s community those groups or individuals who are affected directly or indirectly by the organization’s pursuit of goals.

A project is accomplished by performing a set of activities like manufacturing a product, organizing health programmes or managing relief work. Manufacturing a product consists of many activities like sourcing raw material, staffing etc. Every project requires resources; these may be money, material and others.

According to Project Management Institute, USA, “Project is a system involving the co-ordination of a number of separate department entities throughout the organization and which must be completed within prescribed schedules and time constraints. Managing a project involves application of scientific tools like operation research, quantitative techniques, planning, implementing, monitoring and coordinating all the activities or tasks to produce desirable outputs in accordance with the pre-determined objectives.

A Concise Guide to Program Management: Fundamental Concepts and Issues

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A Concise Guide to Program Management: Fundamental Concepts and Issues
Publisher: Purdue University | Pages: 176 | 2004-08-18 | ISBN 1557533768 | PDF | 1 MB

Program Management or Project Management, which we will use synonymously and later differentiate between, has been around since the beginning of time. The only difference between 300 B.C. and now is that we have crystallized and subsequently formalized our understanding of the many activities we must perform if we wish to bring continuity to our program management practices and therefore increase our opportunities for success.

Many times over my years of teaching program management, the class participants have discovered that program management is not necessarily for rocket scientists—although they ideally adhere to the basic principles of it. Instead, the basic activities and products of the program management process are followed, or at least thought about, in every single decision made. It’s true! As we move through the program management process, it will become increasingly obvious that we do, in fact, at least think through the various activities of the process, if perhaps for only a few seconds at each point along the way.

Let’s take the example of planting a garden. One of the first things we do is to think about how nice a garden might look if planted in that ideal spot in our back or front yards. This concept of “visualizing” is what we might call our “operational perspective.” In other words, at this point we are simply collecting our thoughts on why we might want to plant such a garden.

McGraw-Hill's Conquering SAT Math, 2nd Ed.

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McGraw-Hill's Conquering SAT Math, 2nd Ed.
McGraw-Hill | 2007-06-20 | ISBN: 0071493417 | 396 pages | PDF | 1,9 MB

Conquering the New SAT Math covers all the mathematics topics and all the problem types on the new version of the SAT. It is the SAT you will take. Every page in this book was field tested by high school students and reviewed by experienced high school math teachers. We listened very carefully to student and teacher recommendations to create a book that will work for you.

You learn mathematics by doing mathematics. The review sections of this book contain hundreds of examples and practice problems. The review sections also feature worked-out model SAT problems—more than 300 practice SAT problems with explained answers. There are another 270 SAT problems with explained answers in five SAT Mathematics Practice Tests. That’s more than 600 worked-out SAT practice problems in all.

We review each of the 17 major areas on the SAT in 17 separate chapters. Each chapter begins with a clear review and practice with answers. Next come several worked-out SAT problems to show you how to apply the mathematics concepts to the SAT format. Then comes a whole set of practice SAT problems in each chapter, with explained answers. The problems generally increase in difficulty.

The five mathematics practice tests follow the review chapters. Each test reflects the mix of mathematics problems you will find on the real SAT. The tests are deliberately a little more difficult than the actual SAT. You will get an estimated mathematics score range for each test you complete.

We show you strategies for answering SAT multiple choice and “grid-in” math questions. However, the most important strategy is to think mathematically, just like the people who make up the test do. These test writers always have particular mathematics skills and concepts in mind as they write an item. Knowing how to spot those concepts is usually the secret to getting a high score. You’ll learn that from this book.

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